Web merchants wear many hats, such as entrepreneur, marketer, accountant, and technologist. If you need help developing some of your ecommerce skills, there are plenty of free resources available online.

Here is a list of education sites for ecommerce entrepreneurs. These sites provide short tutorials, webinars and lectures, and full college courses. All of these resources are free....

We hosted another great meetup in the MaRS Commons last night with Nathan Monk (@cowboytweets) taking us through a great presentation by General Assembly on the “9 Mistakes Every eCommerce Company Makes“. We had another packed house, with some great discussion and debate over the critical elements that every eCommerce professional must think about in order to be successful in the digital world.

B2C e-commerce in China is expected to grow by more than 30% annually between 2010 and 2016. According to Germany-based secondary market research firm yStat.com, a growing number of Chinese use social networks to purchase products online, while m-commerce is also gaining in importance.

Yet the share of online shoppers as a proportion of internet users in China remains low, Enterprise Innovation reports...

Costco has mobile-enabled more than 50 pieces of content in its monthly magazine to bring static pages to life. Costco is rolling out the mobile technology in the April issue of The Costco Connection.

“Because The Costco Connection has the largest print circulation of any monthly magazine in the U.S., it has the potential of interacting with a large mobile audience now that readers can connect directly from the print pages,” said David Fuller, assistant vice president of publishing and editor of The Costco Connection, Issaquah, WA

I’ve had many discussions this year with web designers and developers concerning user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) and what the differences are. For ecommerce merchants, it’s important to know the difference if you are planning any type of redesign of your online store.

One of the most critical components of your online store is the user experience. Regardless of how elegant your website looks, if you fail to deliver the type of user experience your buyers are looking for, they will leave your site and shop elsewhere. Because there are so many well-designed stores today, shoppers demand that type of experience from all sites.

This article explores the difference between UI and UX and why you need to the right resources on your team when you redesign your website.

The ecommerce platform that hosts a site determines the URL structure, which in turn can have an impact on the site’s search engine optimization. Each platform creates URLs according to its own rules, but nearly all can be modified for greater SEO and brand recognition.

In years past, URLs with lots of folders and parameters posed major crawl issues for the search engines. In some cases the “spider traps” created by complex ecommerce URLs would even prevent the engines from indexing a site, effectively cutting off the flow of organic search customers.

Google and Bing are much more capable of crawling or intelligently ignoring parameters and long, scraggly folder paths in URLs today, but optimal URLs do play a role in SEO. Using descriptive words in URLs gives the search engines yet another algorithmic insight into the types of searches the page would be relevant for. In addition, customers reviewing their search results can see the URL displayed and gain or lose confidence in that page’s ability to fulfill their need...

Today’s sophisticated consumers are using mobile devices more than ever and they’re using them to access social media and business web/ecommerce sites. People are constantly on their smartphones and tablets looking for things to do or to buy. In order to attract and keep this audience, your brand needs an integrated approach to SoLoMo. You need to get social, think local, and spend on mobile. Check out this infographic which helps show the importance of a SoLoMo approach...

That is true; branding is the best way, which gives you a clear and conspicuous image in your audience.

Branding is an essential part of the way you communicate who you are and how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. According to the latest analysis, it has been seen that strong brand marketing can give a steady growth in your sales, which ultimately leads to an incredibly high amount of profitability. That is the only reason people spend their millions to make strong brand image in market place.

There are a lot of reasons why it is so essential to focus on branding for a victorious leadership in business. Below are the most important ones...

I learned that empowering brand is not just the strategy for the market. It has several purposes, but the most imp part is giving essential message to the customers to create emotional connection with them. Awareness of brand may increase in sales and image your company as well.

Lexity, marketing apps provider, has launched Commerce Central-an open commerce cloud platform for ecommerce services. Commerce Central allows developers to distribute and connect apps to more than thirty ecommerce platforms (e.g. Magento, Etsy, eBay, etc.). Seen as the first truly “open” commerce platform, Commerce Central allows developers to use the same code across multiple platforms. Lexity CEO, Amit Kumar, commented: “Because Lexity is the first Open Commerce Cloud, we make it easy for developers to connect their apps with the many ecommerce services available today and we in turn make these apps available to merchants via our App Store….With Commerce Central, developers can focus on providing functionality to their merchant customers without worrying about the sign-up process, or about accessing data via many different APIs"...

The biggest buzz at this year’s Consumer Electronics Showmay have been reserved for all the shiny new gadgets unveiled, but these freshly touted technologies will also have a significant growth impact on mobile commerce and mobile advertising this year and for as far as the eye can see.

With another year of undeniable advancements in mobile hardware ahead, 2013 promises to deliver striking gains in production, distribution and content delivery methods that may extend the mobile ad industry’s horizons by leaps and bounds.

Mobile advertising is already on pace to grow nearly ten-fold by 2015, blowing past $10 billion with relative ease. Although mobile advertising will still be smaller than cable, broadcast and web advertising, with a 35 percent growth rate in mobile it won’t take long for the tables to turn, says Jonathan Weitz, partner at IBB Consulting, who spoke in Las Vegas at CES last week....

EBay and PayPal are reaping the benefits as consumers increasingly turn to their smartphones and tablets for shopping-related activities, with mobile proving to be a key driver of revenue for both companies.

For the year ending Dec. 31, 2012, eBay said its mobile commerce volume totaled $13 billion in 2012, up more than 120 percent from the previous year while mobile payment volume for PayPal totaled $14 billion, up more than 250 percent from the previous year. With fourth quarter results exceeding the company’s expectations, it expects mobile to continue to grow in 2013 and is forecasting mobile commerce and mobile payments volume to each exceed $20 billion for the year...

For the vast majority of retail companies, mobile represents only a neglible fraction of total sales, and it's likely to stay that way for the next half-decade.

Mobile commerce, or "mcommerce," has had a transformative (and highly publicized) impact on some businesses, including Amazon, eBay and flash sales sites like Gilt. But for the vast majority of retail companies, mobile represents only a neglible fraction of total sales, and it's likely to stay that way for the next half-decade, according to data from Forrester provided exclusively to Mashable.

Sales of physical retail goods and services made on smartphones were $8 billion in the U.S. last year, accounting for 3% of online sales and less than 1% of total retail sales. (Those numbers have been driven up by some outliers, like the aforementioned Amazon and eBay, which have mobile sales in the billions, per Forrester's estimates.) For most U.S. retailers, mobile represents only 1.5% of online sales. Over the next five years, total mobile sales are expected to grow 33% annually to $31 billion, making up 9% of online sales in 2017...

Social media is an amazing phenomenon. It started off as a way to connect people to their friends online. But in just a few years it has become a ready made platform on which anyone can get their voice heard by millions of people. And businesses have finally started to take notice.

Any place where you can get your message out to millions is a marketer’s dream, so social media is the perfect place for companies to get in touch with their customers. But does it work the other way round? You would think that the direct line of communication that you can find on social media would make it the best way to address a company with your concerns, right?

The surprising evidence suggests that the the answer is "No". Most companies do not reply to complaints made on social media, and you can understand why they do not want to publicize complaints that people have made.

For some of the statistics, check out this infographic designed by PeopleClaim.com. PeopleClaim is an online alternative dispute resolution website allowing you to resolve your dispute with a company without having to go through expensive legal systems....

PhatRice.com, based in Hong Kong, is a website designed to help providers of socially responsible and creative products sell their offerings online. The site promotes products in three categories:

• Listings that display a “heart” icon indicate products that improve lives through social good. • A “green leaf” icon designates innovative products that are environmentally responsible. • A “light bulb” icon denotes a product designed with exceptional creativity and imagination.

PhatRice.com (whose name is a combination of “pretty hot and tempting” and the concept of rice as a staple for Asian society) intends to gather these products from entrepreneurs all over the world, with an initial focus on offerings from Asia and sales to the Asian marketplace....

Google uses the data feed product information you send to the Google Merchant Center to populate Google Shopping listing information. If you don't have the ability to change your Google Shopping feed, obtaining that ability should be a top priority.

Technology has accelerated lifestyles so greatly that smartphones and tablets are fast becoming retail's digital wallets and payment terminals. Hong Kong's smartsters are setting the tone in tomorrow's new call to spending. Oswald Chan reports.

The term 'smartphone' didn't set the lexicon ringing until 1997, when Stockholm-based telecom equipment maker Ericsson described its prototype GS 88 'Penelope' model as a Smart Phone.

The distinction between a smartphone and its predecessors wasn't just its fancier name; it boasted additional software functions, such as e-mail capability and an Internet browser. Smartphones made ordinary cellphones suddenly seem like dumb phones. In short, smartphones enhanced user experience, by allowing third-party applications better integration with the phone's operating system. The innovations continue today. Smartphone's are getting smarter and evolving into mobile payment terminals, or digital wallets, while m-commerce - the ability to spend, save or receive money with a smartphone or tablet - is fast becoming a way of life...

BEIJING: The success of online shopping is helping China become a consumption-driven society, a new study has claimed.

China's E-tail Revolution: Online Shopping as a Catalyst for Growth, from the McKinsey Global Institute, argues that e-tail is not just a replacement channel for bricks and mortar purchases but is in fact encouraging incremental consumption, especially in the country's less developed regions.

Initial estimates suggest that the channel may have added 2% of incremental value to private consumption in 2011 and could generate between 4% and 7% in incremental consumption by 2020.

Here are a few stories that caught my attention in the commerce space this week. Death bells toll for brick-and-mortar retail A recent report from mobile analytics startup Flurry...

A recent report from mobile analytics startup Flurry looked at the growth in consumer use of shopping apps and concluded the “App & Mortar economy has arrived.” Flurry president and CEO Simon Khalaf reviewed their research results in a blog post on the company website, noting that “consumer time spent in Retailer Apps has skyrocketed by 525% from December 2011 to December 2012,” exceeding the shopping app growth of 274% as well as overall app growth of 132%...

A new set of card data security guidelines for merchants and payments providers aims to address increasing risks unique to e-commerce environments.

On Jan. 31, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council issued its PCI DSS E-commerce Guidelines Information Supplement, a set of guidelines for e-commerce security. The guidelines relate to online infrastructures and how merchants work with third-party providers.

Developed by the PCI E-commerce Security Special Interest Group, the 39-page resource includes recommendations about topics ranging from online risks associated with payments gateways to often-overlooked security gaps Web-hosting providers can inadvertently create, says Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI Security Standards Council....

The site became the most popular social network in 2005 and surpassed Google as the most visited website in 2006. In later years, use of the site quickly declined due to the growing popularity of Facebook. Myspace was jointly purchased in 2011 for $35 million by digital media company Specific Media and musician-turned-entrepreneur Justin Timberlake.

Myspace is making a comeback thanks largely to Timberlake's leadership. Some suggest it could be useful for business. It is experiencing double-digit growth, outpacing that of Tumblr and Google+, according to comScore's latest figures...

I recently shopped for a new wallet in several online stores. Later that day, I saw ads for one of the same wallets on The New York Times' website and Facebook from eBags.com. Since I had shopped at eBags.com, I knew that it was not a coincidence. It was a remarketing ad. In this case, it was a highly personalized ad featuring one of the wallets I looked at.

Did you know that Google personalizes your search experience based on past search history? You can turn that off in Google if you choose, but it's there by default as a way to match your search with, presumably, your interests...

The Consumer Electronics Show is coming to an end and many weary reporters are heading home bolstered by the promise of quiet time and no lines for the bathroom. CES is six straight days of noise, lights, hype and pitchmen and more input than any one person can digest in that amount of time.

The reporter from Forbes was a first timer and here’s what he had to say:

If you ever really questioned if there is in fact an app for that, let me assure you — after perusing many, many of the booths from the more than 3,250 exhibitors spread out over the 1.9 million-square feet at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013 — that there is....

SoLoMo / SoCoLoMo is important for leaders. In key decisions, consider how Social Media, eCommerce & Content, Localization & Mobility help or hurt your decision

In an evolving digital work place, it is critical for leaders to think of their products, services and leadership in terms of SoCoLoMo. This is a take off of the popular SoLoMo, which stood for Social Local and Mobile, with the Co addition standing for Commerce and / or Content. Why is SoCoLoMo important? Here are some statistics to consider...

"Palo Alto-based start-up Fanplayr has closed a $2 million funding round. The seed financing was led by Denali Venture Partners."

Fanplayr Inc., a Palo Alto-based start-up focused on data-driven Conversion Science for e-commerce, announced today the successful close of a $2 million funding round led by Denali Venture Partners.

Fanplayr has developed a unique platform for e-commerce merchants that analyzes site and visitor traffic to determine the optimal value and timing of purchase incentives. By deploying Fanplayr, merchants will see immediate increases to their sales conversions rates while preserving and improving margins. Fanplayr has been designed from the ground up to integrate with leading e-commerce carts including Magento, Shopify, ZenCart, Presta Shop, Lemonstand and WordPress...

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.